MISO/USA

Precise Predictions for Grid Stability in the USA

In the USA, wind and solar farms often cover vast areas with capacities of up to 200 MW. At these sizes, it is essential to be able to react fast to power fluctuations and, if necessary, to down regulate with precision.

DIR: Dispatchable Intermittent Resource

With this goal in mind, the American transmission provider MISO, with over 13.000 MW under its control, introduced the Dispatchable Intermittent Resource (DIR) in November 2010. It is only via remote control and pinpointed down regulation of individual farms that the world-wide largest grid operator is able to administer such large amounts of wind power.

The above process has been an integral part of energy & meteo systems power predictions from the beginning. This includes high resolution predictions for the entire area of the transmission grid operator, delivered every five minutes, and used directly for the DIR. The forecasts thus serve as schedules for all wind and solar farms within the so-called "footprint".

The data processing has been optimized so that a measurement of the current park feed-in is delivered as a very-short-term prediction to the MISO system. Since a short-term delivery in such cases is critical, the system must also be fail-safe and thus highly available. In meeting these demands, energy & meteo systems is making a decisive contribution towards the grid stability of 15 US States and the Canadian Province of Manitoba.